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PASTORAL LETTER 



OF 



HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL MERCIER 

ARCHBISHOP OF MALINES, BELGIUM 



[Reprinted from The New York Times] 
January 22, 1915 



NOTE. — The document, of which this is a translation, was suppressed by the 
German authorities in Belgium 





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D. of D. 
FEB 25 1915 



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CARDINAL MERCIER*S PASTORAL LETTER 

My Very Dear Brethren: 

I cannot tell you how instant and how present thought of you has been to 
me throughout the months of suffering and of mourning through which we 
have passed. I had to leave abruptly on the 20th of August in order to ful- 
fill my last duty toward the beloved and venerated Pope whom we have 
lost, and in order to discharge an obligation of the conscience from which I 
could not dispense myself in the election of the successor of Pius X., the 
Pontiff who now directs the Church under the title, full of promise and of 
hope, of Benedict XV. 

It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings — stroke after stroke — of 
the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain, next to the 
burning of the library and of the scientific installations of our great univer- 
sity and of the devastation of the city, and next of the wholesale shooting of 
citizens and tortures inflicted upon women and children and upon unarmed 
and undefended men. 

And, while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph 
brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful Metropolitan Church, 
of the Church of N6tre Dame au De la Dyle, of the Episcopal Palace, and 
of a great part of our dear city of Malines. 

Far from my diocese, without means of communication with you, I 
was compelled to lock my grief within my own afflicted heart and to carry 
it, with the thought of you, which never left me, to the Crucifix. 

I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these: 
A disaster has visited the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation so 
faithful in the great mass of her population to God, so upright in her 
patriotism, so noble in her King and Government, is the first sufferer. She 
bleeds; her sons are stricken down, within her fortresses and upon her 
fields, in defense of her rights and of her territory. 

"Why All This Sorrow?" 

Soon there will not be one Belgian family not in mourning. Why all this 
sorrow, my God? Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken us? Then I looked upon 
the Crucifix. I looked upon Jesus, most gentle and humble Lamb of God, 
crushed, clothed in His blood as in a garment, and I thought I heard from 
His own mouth the words which the psalmist uttered in His name: "Oh, 
God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me? O, my God, I 
shall cry, and Thou wilt not hear! " 

And forthwith the murmur died upon my lips, and I remembered what 
our Divine Saviour said in His gospel, "The disciple is not above the master, 
nor the servant above his Lord." The Christian is the servant of a God who 
became man in order to suffer and to die. < 



To rebel against pain, to revolt against providence, because it permits 
grief and bereavement, is to forget whence we came, the school in which 
we have been taught, the example that each of us carries graven in the 
name of a Christian, which each of us honors at his hearth, contemplates 
at the altar of his prayers, and of which he desires that his tomb, the place 
of his last sleep, shall bear the sign. 

I, my dearest brethren, I shall return by and by to the providential law of 
suffering, but you will agree that since it has pleased a God-made Man 
who was holy, innocent, without stain, to suffer and to die for us who are 
sinners, who are guilty, who are perhaps criminals, it ill becomes us to com- 
plain, whatever we may be called upon to endure. The truth is that no 
disaster on earth, striking creatures only, is comparable with that which 
our sins provoked and whereof God Himself chose to be the blameless victim. 

Having recalled to mind this fundamental truth, I find it easier to sum- 
mon you to face what has befallen us and to speak to you simply and direct- 
ly of what is your duty and of what may be your hope. That duty I shall 
express in two words: Patriotism and endurance. 

Gratitude to the Fighters. 

My dearest brethren, I desire to utter in your name and my own the 
gratitude of those whose age, vocation, and social conditions cause them to 
benefit by the heroism of others without bearing in it any active part. 

When, immediately upon my return from Rome, I went to Havre to 
greet our Belgian, French, and English wounded: when, later, at Malines, at 
Louvain, at Antwerp, it was given to me to take the hands of those brave 
men who carried a bullet in their flesh, a wound on their forehead, because 
they had marched to the attack of the enemy or borne the shock of his 
onslaught, it was a word of gratitude to, them that rose to my lips. "Oh 
valiant friends," I said, "it was for us, it was for each one of us, it was for 
me, that you risked your lives and are now in pain. I am moved to tell you 
of my respect, of my thankfulness, to assure you that the whole nation 
knows how much she is in debt to you." 

For in truth our soldiers are our saviors. 

A first time, at Liege, they saved France; a second time, in Flanders, 
they arrested the advance of the enemy upon Calais. France and England 
know it, and Belgium stands before the entire world a nation of heroes. 

Never before in my whole life did I feel so proud to be a Belgian as when, 
on the platforms of French stations, and halting a while in Paris, and visit- 
ing London, I was witness of the enthusiastic admiration our Allies feel for 
the heroism of our army. Our King is, in the esteem of all, at the very sum- 
mit of the moral scale. He is doubtless the only man who does not recognize 
that fact, as, simple as the simplest of his soldiers, he stands in the trenches 
and puts new courage, by the serenity of his face, into the hearts of those of 
whom he requires that they shall not doubt of their country. The foremost 
duty of every Belgian citizen at this hour is gratitude to the army. 

If any man had rescued you from shipwreck or from a fire, you would 
assuredly hold yourselves bound to him by a debt of everlasting thankful- 
ness. But it is not one man, it is 250,000 men who fought, who suffered, who 



fell for you so that you might be free, so that Belgium might keep her in- 
dependence, her dynasty, her patriotic unity, so that after the vicissitudes 
of battle she might rise, nobler, purer, more erect, and more glorious than 
before. 

Asks Prayers for Victory. 

Pray daily, my brethren, for these 250,000 and for their leaders' victory; 
pray for our brothers in arms; pray for the fallen; pray for those who are 
still engaged; pray for the recruits who are making ready for the fight to 
come. 

In your name I send them the greeting of our fraternal sympathy and 
our assurance that not only do we pray for the success of their arms and 
for the eternal welfare of their souls, but that we also accept for their sake 
all the distress, whether physical or moral, that falls to our own share in the 
oppression that hourly besets us, and all that the future may have in store 
for us, in humiliation for a time, in anxiety, and in sorrow. In the day of 
final victory we shall all be in honor; it is just that today we should all be in 
grief. 

To judge by certain rumors that have reached me, I gather that from 
districts that have had least to suffer some bitter words have arisen toward 
our God, words which, if spoken with cold calculation, would not be far 
from blasphemous. 

Oh, all too easily do I remember how natural instinct rebels against the 
evils that have fallen upon Catholic Belgium. The spontaneous thought 
of mankind is ever that virtue should have its instantaneous crown and 
injustice its immediate retribution. 



"The Ways of God." 

But the ways of God are not our ways, the Scripture tells us. Providence 
gives free course, for a time measured by Divine wisdom, to human passions 
and the conflict of desires. God, being eternal, is patient. The last word 
is the word of mercy, and it belongs to those who believe in love. "Why art 
Thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? Quare tristis es 
anima, et quare conturbas me? " Hope in God. Bless Him always. Is He 
not thy Saviour and thy God? Spera in Deo quondam ad hue confiteor." 

When Job, whom God presented as an example of constancy to the 
generations to come, had been stricken, blow upon blow, by Satan, with the 
loss of his children, of his goods, of his health, his enemies approached him 
with provocations to discouragement ; his wife urged upon him a blasphemy 
and a curse. "Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Curse God, and 
die." But the man of God was unshaken in his confidence. And he said 
to her: "Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have re- 
ceived good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? 
Dominus dedit. Dominus abstulit: sicut Domino placuit ita factum est. 
Sit nomen Domini benedictum." And experience proved that saintly one 
to be right. It pleased the Lord to recompense, even here below. His 



faithful servant. "The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before, and 
for his sake God pardoned his friends." 



Belgium's Unhappy Fate. 

Better than any other man, perhaps, do I know what our unhappy 
country has undergone. Nor will any Belgian, I trust, doubt of what I suffer 
in my soul as a citizen and as a Bishop, in sympathy with all this sorrow. 
These last four months have seemed to me an age long. By thousands have 
our brave ones been mowed down. Wives, mothers are weeping for those 
they shall not see again; hearts are desolate; dire poverty spreads, anguish 
increases. 

At Malines, at Antwerp the people of two great cities have been given 
over, the one for six hours, the other for thirty-four hours, to a continuous 
bombardment, to the throes of death. 

I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated 
in my diocese, and the ruins I beheld, and the ashes, were more dreadful 
than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined. 

Other parts of my diocese, which I have not had time to visit, have in 
like manner been laid waste. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, con- 
vents in great numbers are in ruins. Entire villages have all but disap- 
peared. At Werchter Wackerzeel, for instance, out of 380 homes 130 
remain. At Tremeloo — two- thirds of the village are overthrown. At 
Bueken out of a hundred houses twenty are standing. At Schaffen 189 
houses out of 200 are destroyed; eleven still stand. At Louvain the third 
part of the buildings are down; 1,074 dwellings have disappeared. On the 
town land and in the suburbs 1,623 houses have been burned. 



The Destruction at Louvain. 

In this dear city of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnifi- 
cent Church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendor. The ancient 
College of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of 
the University, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its 
unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great 
portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time 
of its foundation, which preserved for masters and students alike a noble 
tradition, and were an incitement in their studies, all this accumulation of 
intellectual, of historic and of artistic riches, the fruit of the labors of five 
centuries — all is in the dust. 

Many a parish lost its pastor. There is now sounding in my ears the 
sorrowful voice of an old man, of whom I asked whether he had mass on 
Sunday in his battered church. "It is two months, ' ' he said, ' ' since we had a 
church." The parish priest and the curate had been interned in a concen- 
tration camp. 

Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the 
prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Madgeburg. At Mun- 



sterlagen alone, 3, 100 civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the 
physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom. 

Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; 
but I know that there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, 
under pain of death, their fellow citizens were compelled to dig their graves. 
In the Lou vain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men 
and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned. 



List of Some Priests Killed. 

In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests were put to death. 
Their brothers in religion or in the priesthood will wish to know their 
names. Here they are: Dupierreux of the Society of Jesus, Brothers 
Sebastian and Allard of the Congregation of the Josephites, Brother 
Candide of the Congregation of the Brothers of Mercy, Father Maximin, 
Capuchin, and Father Vincent, Conventual; Lombaerts, parish priest at 
Boven-Loo; Goris, parish priest at Autgaerden; Carette, professor at the 
Episcopal College of Louvain; de Clerck, parish priest at Bueken; d'Argent, 
parish priest at Gelrode, and Wouters Jean, parish priest at Pont-Brule. 
We have reason to believe that the parish priest of Herenta, Van Bladel, 
an old man of 71, was also killed. Until now, however, his body has not 
been found. 

One of these, the parish priest of Gelrode, suffered, I believe, a veritable 
martyrdom. I made a pilgrimage to his grave, and amid the little flock 
which so lately he had been feeding with the zeal of an apostle, there did I 
pray to Him that from the height of heaven He would guard His parish, 
His diocese, His country. 

We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure of our ruins. 
And what would it be if we turned our said steps toward Liege, Namur, 
Audenne, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi, and elsewhere? And there, where 
lives were not taken, and there, where the stones of buildings were not 
thrown down, what anguish unrevealed! Families hitherto living at ease 
now in bitter want ; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined, industry at a 
standstill, thousands upon thousands of working men without employment, 
working women, shop girls, humble servant girls without the means of 
earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever, 
crying, "O Lord, how long, how long? " 

There is nothing to reply. The reply remains the secret of God. 

Yes, dearest brethren, it is the secret. 

(I have said that thirteen ecclesiastics had been shot within the Diocese 
of Malines. There were, to my own actual personal knowledge, more than 
thirty in the Diocese of Namur, Tournai, and Liege — Schlogel, parish 
priest of Hastiree; Gille, parish priest of Couvin; Pieret, curate at Etalle; 
Alexandre, curate at Mussy-la-Ville; Marechal, seminarist at Maissin; the 
Rev. Father Gillet, Benedictine of Maredsous; the Rev. Father Nicolas, 
Premonstratensian of the Abbey of Leffe; two brothers of the same abbey; 
one brother of the Congregation of Oblates; Poskin, parish priest of Surice; 
Hotlet, parish priest of Les Alloux; Georges, parish priest of Tintigny; 



Glouden, parish priest of Latour; Zenden, retired parish priest at Latout; 
Jacques, a priest; Druet, parish priest of Acoz; Pollart, parish priest of 
Roselies; Labeye, parish priest of Biegny-Trembleur; Thielen, parish 
priest of Haccourt; Janssen, parish priest of Heure le Romain; Chabot, 
parish priest of Foret; Dossogne, parish priest of Hockay; Reusonnet, 
curate of Olme; Bilande, chaplain of the Institute of Deaf Mutes at Bouge; 
Docq, a priest, and others of God.) 

He is the Master of events and the Sovereign Director of the human 
multitude. Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus; orbis terrarum et universi 
qui habitant in eo. The first relation between the creature and his Creator 
is that of absolute dependence. The very being of the creature is depend- 
ent; dependent are his nature, his faculties, his acts, his works. 

At every passing moment that dependence is renewed, is incessantly re- 
asserted, inasmuch as, without the will of the Almighty, existence of the 
first single instant would vanish before the next. Adoration, which is ^ the 
recognition of the sovereignty of God, is not therefore a fugitive act; it is 
the permanent state of a being conscious of his own origin. On every page 
of the Scriptures Jehovah affirms his sovereign dominion. 

"The Whole Economy of the Law." 

The whole economy of the old law, the whole history of the chosen 
people, tend to the same end — to maintain Jehovah upon His throne and to 
cast idols down. " I am the first and the last. I am the Lord, and there is 
none else; there is no God beside me. I form the light and create darkness, 
I make peace and create evil. Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker, a 
sherd of the earthen pots. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, what 
art thou making, and thy work is without hands? Tell ye, and come, and 
consult together. A just God and a Saviour there is none beside Me." 

Ah, did the proud reason of mankind dream that it could dismiss our 
God? Did it smile in irony when through Christ and through His Church 
He pronounced the solemn words of expiation and of repentance? Vain of 
fugitive excesses, "O light-minded man, full of pleasure and of wealth, 
hast thou imagined that thou couldst suffice even to thyself?" 

Then was God set aside in oblivion, then was He misunderstood, then 
was He blasphemed with acclamation, and by those whose authority, whose 
influence, whose power had charged them with the duty of causing His 
great laws and His great order to be revered and obeyed. Anarchy then 
spread among the lower ranks of mankind, and many sincere consciences 
were troubled by the evil example. How long, O Lord, they wondered, how 
long wilt Thou suffer the pride of this iniquity? Or wilt Thou finally justify 
the impious opinion that Thou carest no more for the work of Thy hands? 
A shot from a thunderbolt, and behold, all human foresight is set at nought ! 
Europe trembles upon the brink of destruction! 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

Many are the thoughts that throng the breast to-day, and the chief of 
them all is this: 

God reveals Himself as the Master. The nations that make the attack, 
and the nations that are warring in self-defense, alike confess themselves 

8 



to be in the hands of Him without Whom nothing is made, nothing is 
done. 

Men long unaccustomed to prayer are turning again to God. Within 
the army, within the civil world, in public, and within the individual 
conscience, there is prayer. Nor is that prayer to-day a word learnt by 
rote, uttered lightly by the lip ; it surges from the troubled heart, it takes 
the form, at the feet of God, of the very sacrifice of life. The being of 
man is a whole offering to God. This is worship, this is the fulfillment 
of the primal moral and religious law; the Lord thy God shalt thou adore, 
and Him only shalt thou serve. 

And even those who murmur, and whose courage is not sufficient for 
submission to the hand that smites us and saves us, even these implicitly 
acknowledge God to be the master, for if they blaspheme they blaspheme 
Him for His delay in closing with their desires. 

But as for us, my brethren, we will adore Him in the integrity of our 
souls. Not yet do we see in all its magnificence the revelation of His 
wisdom, but our faith trusts Him with it all. Before His justice we are 
humble, and in His mercy hopeful. With holy Tobias we know that 
because we have sinned He has chastised us, but because He is merciful 
He will save us. 

Belgium's Delinquencies. 

It would perhaps be cruel to dwell upon our guilt now, when we are 
paying so well and so nobly what we owe. But shall we not confess that 
we have indeed something to expiate? He who has received much, from 
him shall much be required. Now dare we say that the moral and religious 
standard of our people has risen as its economic prosperity has risen? 
The observance of Sunday rest, the Sunday Mass, the reverence for 
marriage, the restraints of modesty — what have you made of these? 

What, even within Christian families, had become of the simplicity 
practiced by our fathers, what of the spirit of penance, what of respect 
for authority? And we, too, we priests, we religious, I, the Bishop, we 
whose great mission it is to present in our lives, yet more than in our 
speech, the Gospel of Christ, have we earned the right to speak to our 
people the word spoken by the Apostle to the nations — "Be ye followers 
of me, as I also am of Christ? " 

We labor, indeed; we pray, indeed; but it is all too little. We should 
be, by the very duty of our state, the public expiators for the sins of the 
world. But which was the thing dominant in our lives — expiation or our 
comfort and well-being as citizens? Alas! we have all had times in which 
we, too, fell under God's reproach to His people after the escape from 
Egypt: "The beloved grew fat and kicked; they have provoked me with 
that which was no god, and I will provoke them with that which is no 
people." Nevertheless, He will save us, for He wills not that our ad- 
versaries should boast that they, and not the Eternal, did these things. 
"See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God beside me. I will 
kill and I will make to live. I will strike and I will heal." 



"God Will Save Belgium." 

God will save Belgium, my brethren, you cannot doubt it. 

Nay, rather, He is saving her. 

Across the smoke of conflagration, across the stream of blood, have 
you not glimpses, do you not perceive signs of His love for us? Is there 
a patriot among us who does not know that Belgium has grown great? 
Now, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page of our 
national history? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the 
glory of this shattered nation? When in her throes she brings forth heroes, 
our mother country gives her own energy to the blood of these sons of 
hers. Let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in patriotism. There 
were Belgians and many such, who wasted their time and their talents 
in futile quarrels of class with class, of race with race, of passion with 
personal passion. 

Yet when, on August 2nd, a mighty foreign power, confident in its 
own strength, and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us 
in our independence, then did all Belgians, without difference of party, 
or of condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close ranged about their 
own King and their own Government and cry to the invader: "Thou 
shalt not go through!" 

At once, instantly, we are conscious of our own patriotism. Far down 
within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal 
kinships, than party feeling, and this is the need and the will to devote 
ourselves to that more general interest which Rome termed the public 
thing, res publico,. And this profound will within us is patriotism. 

Our country is not a mere concourse of persons, of families inhabiting 
the same soil, having among themselves relations more or less intimate, 
of business, of neighborhood, of a community, of memories happy or 
unhappy. 

Not so; it is an association of living souls subject to a social organiza- 
tion, to be defended and safeguarded at all costs, even the cost of blood, 
under the leadership of those presiding over its fortunes. And it is because 
of this general spirit that the people of a country live a common life in 
the present, through the past, through the aspirations, the hopes, the 
confidence in a life to come, which they share together. 

Patriotism, an internal principle of order and of unity, an organic 
bond of the members of a nation> was placed by the finest thinkers of 
Greece and Rome at the head of the natural virtues. Aristotle, the prince 
of philosophers of antiquity, held disinterested service of the city — that 
is, the State — to be the very ideal of human duty. 



Patriotism a Christian Duty. 

And the religion of Christ makes patriotism a positive law; there is 
no perfect Christian who is not also a perfect patriot. For our religion 
exalts the antique ideal, showing it to be realizable only in the absolute. 

10 



Whence, in truth, comes this universal, this irresistible impulse which 
carries at once the will of the whole nation in one single effort of cohesion 
and of resistance in face of the hostile menace against her unity and her 
freedom? . 

Whence comes it that in an hour all interests were merged m the 
interests of all, and that all lives were together offered in willing immola- 
tion? Not that the State is worth more, essentially, than the individual 
or the family, seeing that the good of the family and of the individual 
is the cause and reason of the organization of the State. Not that our 
country is a Moloch on whose altar lives may lawfully be sacrificed. The 
rigidity of antique morals and the despotism of the Caesars suggested the 
false principle — and modern militarism tends to revive it — that the State 
is omnipotent, and that the discretionary power of the State is the rule 
of right. Not so, replies Christian theology; right is peace — that is, the 
interior order of a nation founded upon justice. And justice itself _ is 
absolute only because it formulates the essential relation of man with 
God and of man with man. 



War for War's Sake a Crime. 

Moreover, war for the sake of war is a crime. War is justifiable only 
if it is the necessary means for securing peace. St. Augustine has said: 
"Peace must not be a preparation for war." And war is not to be made 
except for the attainment of peace. In the light of this teaching, which 
is repeated by St. Thomas Aquinas, patriotism is seen in its religious 
character. 

Family interests, class interest, party interests, and the material good 
of the individual take their place, in the scale of values, below the ideal 
of patriotism, for that ideal is right which is absolute. Furthermore, 
that ideal is the public recognition of right in national matters, and of 
national honor. Now there is no absolute except God. God alone, by 
His sanctity and His sovereignty, dominates all human interests and 
human wills. And to affirm the absolute necessity of the subordination 
of all things to right, to justice, is implicitly to affirm God. 

When, therefore, humble soldiers whose heroism we praise answer us 
with characteristic simplicity, "We only did our duty," or "We were 
bound in honor," they express the religious character of their patriotism. 
Which of us does not feel that patriotism is a sacred thing, and. that a 
violation of national dignity is in a manner a profanation and a sacrilege? 



Christ Crowns the Patriot's Valor. 

I was asked lately by a staff officer whether a soldier falling in a right- 
eous cause — and our cause is such, to demonstration — is not veritably 
a martyr. Well, he is not a martyr in the rigorous theological meaning 
of the word, inasmuch as he dies in arms, whereas the martyr delivers 
himself undefended and unarmed into the hands of the executioner; but 

II 



if I am asked what I think of the eternal salvation of a brave man, who 
has consciously given his life in defense of his country's honor and in 
vindication of violated justice, I shall not hesitate to reply that, without 
any doubt whatever, Christ crowns his military valor, and that death, 
accepted in this Christian spirit, assures the safety of that man's soul. 
"Greater love than this no man hath," said our Saviour, "that a man lay 
down his life for his friends." 

And the soldier who dies to save his brothers, and to defend the hearths 
and altars of his country, reaches this highest of all degrees of charity. 
He may not have made a close analysis of the value of his sacrifice, but 
must we suppose that God requires of the plain soldier in the excitement 
of battle the methodical precision of the moralist or the theologian? Can 
we who revere his heroism doubt that his God welcomes him with love? 



Venerates Bereaved Mothers. 

Christian mothers, be proud of your sons. Of all griefs, of all human 
sorrows, yours is perhaps the most worthy of veneration. I think I behold 
you in your affliction standing at the side of the Mother of Sorrows, at 
the foot of the Cross. Suffer us to offer you not only our condolence, but 
our congratulations. Not all our heroes obtain temporal honors, but for 
alHwe expect the immortal crown of the elect. For this is the virtue of 
a single act of perfect charity — it cancels a whole life-time of sins, it trans- 
forms a sinful man into a saint. 

Assuredly a great and a Christian comfort is the thought that not 
only among our own men, but in any belligerent army whatsoever, all 
who in good faith submit to the discipline of their leaders in the service 
of a cause they believe to be righteous are sharers in the eternal reward 
of the soldiers' sacrifice. And how many may there not be among these 
young men of 20 who, had they survived, might possibly not have had 
the resolution to live altogether well, and yet in the impulse of patriotism 
had the resolution to die so well? 

Is it not true, my brethren, that God has the supreme art of mingling 
His mercy with His wisdom and His justice? And shall we not acknowledge 
that if war is a scourge for this earthly life of ours, a scourge whereof we 
cannot easily estimate the destructive force and the extent, it is also for 
multitudes of souls an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the 
pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness? 

We may now say, my brethren, without unworthy pride, that our little 
Belgium has taken a foremost place in the esteem of nations. I am aware 
that certain onlookers, notably in Italy and in Holland, have asked how 
it could be necessary to expose this country to so immense a loss of wealth 
and of life, and whether a verbal manifesto against hostile aggression, or 
a single cannon shot on the frontier would not have served the purpose 
of protest. But assuredly all men of good feeling will be with us in our 
rejection of these paltry counsels. Mere utilitarianism is no sufficient rule 
of Christian citizenship. 



12 



Germany Violated Her Oath. 

On the 19th of April, 1839, a treaty was signed in London by King 
Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one- part, and by the Emperor 
of Austria, the King of France, the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, 
and the Emperor of Russia on the other; and its seventh article decreed 
that Belgium should form a separate and perpetually neutral State, and 
should be held to the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other 
States. The co-signatories promised, for themselves and their successors, 
upon their oath, to fulfill and to observe that treaty in every point and 
every article without contravention or tolerance of contravention. Bel- 
gium was thus bound in honor to defend her own independence. She kept 
her oath. The other Powers were bound to respect and to protect her 
neutrality. Germany violated her oath ; England kept hers. 

These are the facts: 

The laws of conscience are sovereign laws. We should have acted 
unworthily had we evaded our obligation by a mere feint of resistance. 
And now we would not rescind our first resolution; we exult in it. Being 
called upon to write a most solemn page in the history of our country, 
we resolved that it should be also a sincere, also a glorious page. And 
as long as we are required to give proof of endurance, so long we shall 
endure. 

Will Not Hear of Surrender. 

All classes of our citizens have devoted their sons to the cause of their 
country, but the poorer part of the population have set the noblest example, 
for they have suffered also privation, cold, and famine. If I may judge 
of the general feeling from what I have witnessed in the humbler quarters 
of Malines, and in the most cruelly afflicted districts of my diocese, the 
people are energetic in their endurance. They look to be righted; they will 
not hear of surrender. 

Affliction, in the hand of divine Omnipotence, is a two-edged sword. 
It wounds the rebellious, it sanctifies him who is willing to endure. 

God proveth us, as St. James has told us, but He "is not a tempter 
of evils." All that comes from Him is good, a ray of light, a pledge of 
love. "But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence. Blessed 
is he that endureth temptation, for when he hath been proved he shall 
receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love 
Him." 

"Resisting Unto Blood." 

Truce, then, my brethren, to all murmurs of complaint. Remember 
St. Paul's words to the Hebrews, and through them to all of Christ's flock, 
when referring to the bloody sacrifice of our Lord upon the cross he 
reminded them that they had not yet resisted unto blood. Not only 
to the Redeemer's example shall you look, but also to that of 30,000 — 

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perhaps 40,000 — men who have already shed their life blood for their 
country. 

In comparison with them, what have you endured who are deprived 
of the daily comforts of your lives, your newspapers, your means of travel, 
communication with your families? Let the patriotism of our army, the 
heroism of our King, of our beloved Queen in her magnanimity, serve 
to stimulate us and support us. Let us bemoan ourselves no more. Let 
us deserve the coming deliverance. Let us hasten it by our virtue even 
more than by our practices. Courage, brethren! Suffering passes away; 
the crown of life for our souls, the crown of glory for our nation shall 
not pass! 

Germany's No Lawful Authority. 

I do not require of you to renounce any of your national desires. On the 
contrary, I hold it as part of the obligations of my episcopal office to in- 
struct you as to your duty in face of the power that has invaded our soil 
and now occupies the greater part of our country. The authority of that 
power is no lawful authority. Therefore, in soul and conscience you owe it 
neither respect nor attachment nor obedience. 

The sole lawful authority in Belgium is that of our King, of our Govern- 
ment, of the elected representatives of the nation. This authority alone has 
a right to our affection, our submission. 

Thus the invaders' acts of public administration have in themselves no 
authority; but legitimate authority has tacitly ratified such of those acts as 
affect the general interest, and this ratification, and this only, gives them 
jurist value. Occupied provinces are not conquered provinces. Belgium 
is no more a German province than Galicia is a Russian province. Never- 
theless, the occupied portion of our country is in a position it is compelled 
to endure. The greater part of our towns, having surrendered to the 
enemy on conditions, are bound to observe these conditions. From the 
outset of military operations the civil authorities of the country urged upon 
all private persons the necessity of abstention from hostilities against the 
enemy's army. 

That instruction remains in force. It is our army, and our army solely, 
in league with the valiant troops of our Allies, that has the honor and the 
duty of national defense. Let us intrust the army with our final deliver- 
ance. 

Toward the persons of those who are holding dominion among us by mil- 
itary force, and who assuredly can not but be sensible of the chivalrous en- 
ergy with which we have defended and are still defending our independence, 
let us conduct ourselves with all needful forbearance. Some among them 
have declared themselves willing to mitigate, as far as possible, the sever- 
ity of our situation and to help us to recover some minimum of regular civic 
life. Let us observe the rules they have laid upon us so long as those rules 
do not violate our personal liberty, nor our consciences as Christians, nor our 
duty to our country. Let us not take bravado for courage, nor tumult for 
bravery. 

You especially, my dearest brethren in the priesthood, be you at once the 

14 



best examples of patriotism and the best supporters of public order. On the 
field of battle you have been magnificent. The King and the army admire 
the intrepidity of our military chaplains in face of death, their charity at 
the work of the ambulance. Your Bishops are proud of you. You have 
suffered greatly. You have endured much calumny. But be patient; 
history will do you justice. I today bear my witness for you. 



Priests Did Not Incite Civilians. 

Wherever it has been possible I have questioned our people, our clergy, 
and particularly a considerable number of priests who had been deported to 
German prisons, but whom a principle of humanity, to which I gladly 
render homage, has since set at liberty. Well, I affirm, upon my honor, and 
I am prepared to assert upon faith of my oath, that until now I have not 
met a single ecclesiastic, secular or regular, who had once incited civilians to 
bear arms against the enemy. All have loyally followed the instructions of 
their Bishops, given in the early days of August, to the effect that they were 
to use their moral influence over the civil population so that order might be 
preserved and military regulations observed. 

I exhort you to persevere in this ministry of peace, which is for you the 
sanest form of patriotism ; to accept with all your hearts the privations you 
have to endure; to simplify still further, if it is possible, your way of life. 
One of you who is reduced by robbery and pillage to a state bordering on 
total destitution, said to me lately: "I am living now as I wish I had lived 
always." 

Multiply the efforts of your charity, corporeal and spiritual. Like the 
great Apostle, do you endure daily the cares of your Church, so that no man 
shall suffer loss and you not suffer loss, and no man fall and you not burn 
with zeal for him. Make yourselves the champions of all those virtues en- 
joined upon you by civic honor as well as by the gospel of Christ. 

"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, 
whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be 
any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things," so that 
the worthiness of our lives justify us, my most dear colleagues, in repeating 
the noble claim of St. Paul: "The things which ye have learned and re- 
ceived and heard and seen in me, these do ye, and the God of peace shall be 
with you." 

Masses for Fallen Soldiers. 

Let us continue then, dearest brethren, to pray, to do penance, to attend 
holy mass, and to receive holy communion for the sacred intention of our 
dear country. I recommend parish priests to hold a funeral service on behalf 
of our fallen soldiers on every Saturday. 

Money, I know well, is scarce with you all. Nevertheless, if you have 
little, give of that little for the succor of those among your fellow-country- 
men who are without shelter, without fuel, without sufficient bread. I 
have directed my parish priests to form for this purpose, in every parish, a 

15 



relief committee. Do you second them charitably and convey to my hands 
such alms as you can save from your superfluity, if not from your necessities, 
so that I may be the distributor to the destitute who are known to me. 

Our distress has moved the other nations. England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land, France, Holland, the United States, Canada, have vied with one 
another in generosity for our relief. It is a spectacle at once most mournful 
and most noble. Here again is a revelation of the providential wisdom 
which draws good from evil. In your name, my brethren, and in my own, I 
offer the Governments and the nations that have succored us the assurance 
of our admiration and our gratitude. 

With a touching goodness, our Holy Father Benedict XV. has been the 
first to incline his heart toward us. When, a few moments after his election, 
he deigned to take me in his arms, I was bold enough then to ask that the 
first Pontifical benediction he spoke should be given to Belgium, already in 
deep distress through the war. He eagerly closed with my wish, which I 
knew would also be yours. Today, with delicate kindness, his Holiness has 
decided to renounce the annual offering of Peter's pence from Belgium. 

Letter from Pope Benedict. 

In a letter dated on the beautiful festival of the Immaculate Virgin, 
Dec. 8, he assures us of the part he bears in our sufferings. He prays for 
us, calls down upon our Belgium the protection of Heaven, and exhorts 
us to hail in the then approaching advent of the Prince of Peace, the dawn 
of better days. Here is the text of this valued message: 

To Our Dear Son, Desire Mercier, Cardinal Priest of the Holy 
Roman Church, of the Title of St. Peter in Chains, Archbishop 
of Malines, at Malines: 

Our Dear Son: Health and apostolic benediction. The father- 
ly solicitude which we feel for all the faithful whom divine Provi- 
dence has intrusted to our care causes us to share their griefs 
even more fully than their joys. 

Could we, then, fail to be moved by the keenest sorrow at the 
sight of the Belgian Nation, which we so dearly love, reduced by a 
most cruel and most disastrous war to this lamentable state? 

We behold the King and his august family, the members of the 
Government, the chief persons of the country, Bishops, priests, 
and a whole people, enduring woes which must fill with pity all 
gentle hearts, and which our own soul, in the fervor of paternal 
love, must be the first to compassionate. Thus, under the burden 
of this distress and this mourning, we call, in our prayers, for an 
end to such misfortunes. May the God of mercy hasten the day. 

Meanwhile we strive to mitigate, as far as in us lies, this exces- 
sive suffering. Therefore the step taken by our dear son, Cardinal 
Hartman, Archbishop of Cologne, at whose request it was arranged 
that French or Belgian priests detained in Germany should have 
the treatment of officers, gave us great satisfaction, and we have 
expressed our thanks to him for his action. 

16 



As regards Belgium, we have been informed that the faithful 
of that nation, so sorely tried, did not neglect in their piety to 
turn toward us their thoughts, and that even under the blow of so 
many calamities they purposed to gather this year, as in all preced- 
ing years, the offerings to St. Peter, which supply the necessities of 
the Apostolic See. 

This truly incomparable proof of piety and of attachment filled 
us with admiration: we accept it with all the affection that is due 
from a grateful heart ; but having regard to the painful position in 
which our dear children are placed, we cannot bring ourselves to 
favor the fulfillment of that project, noble though it is. If any 
alms are to be gathered, our wish is that the money should be en- 
tirely devoted to the benefit of the Belgian people, who are as 
illustrious by reason of their nobility and their piety as they are 
today worthy of all sympathy. 

Amid the difficulties and anxieties of the present hour we would 
remind the sons who are so dear to us that the arm of God is not 
shortened, that He is ever able to save, that His ear is not deaf to 
prayer. 

Let the hope of divine aid increase with the approach of the 
festival of Christmas and of the mysteries that celebrate the 
birth of our Lord, and recall that peace which God proclaimed to 
mankind by His angels. 

May the souls of the suffering and afflicted find comfort and 
consolation in the assurance of the paternal tenderness that 
prompts our prayers. Yes, may God take pity upon the Belgian 
people and grant them the abundance of all good. 

As a pledge of these prayers and good wishes, we now grant to 
all, and _ in the first place to you, our dear son, the apostolic 
benediction. 

Given in Rome, by St. Peter's on the feast of the Immaculate 
Conception of Our Lady, in the year MCMXIV, the first of our 
pontificate. 

BENEDICT XV., Pope. 



Belgium Will Be Restored. 

_ One last word, my dearest brethren: At the outset of these troubles I 
said to you that in the day of the liberation of our territory we should give 
to the Sacred Heart and to the Blessed Virgin a public testimony of our 
gratitude. Since that date I have been able to consult my colleagues in 
the episcopate, and in agreement with them I now ask you to make, as soon 
as possible, a fresh effort to hasten the construction of the national basilica, 
promised by Belgium in honor of the Sacred Heart. 

As soon as the sun of peace shall shine upon our country we shall redress 
our ruins, we shall restore shelter to those who have none, we shall rebuild 
our churches, we shall reconstitute our libraries, and we shall hope to crown 

17 



this work of reconciliation by raising, upon the heights of the capital of 
Belgium free and catholic, that national basilica of the Sacred Heart. 
Furthermore, every year we shall make it our duty to celebrate solemnly, 
on the Friday following Corpus Christi, the festival of the Sacred H>a-t. 

Lastly, in every region of the diocese the clergy will organize an annual 
pilgrimage of thanksgiving to one of the privileged sanctuaries of the Blessed 
Virgin, in order to pay especial honor to the protectress of our, national 
independence and universal mediatrix of the Christian Commonwealth. 

The present letter shall be read on the following dates : On the first day 
of the year and on the Sundays following the day on which it shall severally 
reach you. 

Accept, my dearest brethren, my wishes and prayers for you and for the 
happiness of your families, and receive, I pray you, my paternal benediction. 

D. J. CARDINAL MERCIER, 

Archbishop of Malines. 



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